Kindergarten Science Field Trips at School III

Those early warm days of spring call for some outdoor exploration! Your school does not have to have a forest or a stream for your students to experience the wonder of the natural world; if there is a tree, if there are ants, these activities allow your students to go on outdoor class trips right at school.

 

Curriculum expectations on this blog are always based on the Ontario Ministry of Expectations. Many of the activities will reinforce, rather than teach, those expectations. As such, no assessment ideas or rubrics are included.

 

Overall Expectations:

By the end of the Full-Day Early Learning–Kindergarten program, children will

• demonstrate an awareness of the natural and built environment through hands-on investigations, observations, questions, and representations of their findings;
• conduct simple investigations through free exploration, focused exploration, and guided activity, using inquiry skills (questioning, planning, predicting, observing, communicating); 
• use technological problem-solving skills (questioning, planning, predicting, constructing, observing, communicating) in free exploration, focused exploration, and guided activity. 
• demonstrate an understanding of the natural world and the need to care for and respect the environment;

 

Spring
Death and Life**
In the first warm days of spring, when snow has melted, there is a lot of brown and not much green in the school ground’s naturalized areas. On one of the early warm days, students can explore a little under the shrubs and see if there is any activity going on. They may see worms, insects and other decomposers working on the dead grass. While they observe, you can discuss the fact that nothing goes to waste in creation and that dead grasses and leaves becomes good soil for new seeds and plants.

Seeds **
The night before this lesson, soak some big lima bean seeds, and prepare to bring some fruit with seeds. On the day of this lesson, let children cut into the fruits with plastic or butter knives and discover the seeds. Contrast tiny apple seeds with large peach pits or avocado seeds.

Distribute the presoaked lima beans. Have the children remove the seed coats. Gently pull the two cotyledons apart and find the embryo inside. Plant some remaining lima beans in a clear cup with wet paper towels. In a few days, the students will be able to see the seed first push down a root. What is the root looking for? After that, the stem starts pushing up towards the light.

 

Maybe not this year, but if your school does this spring's planting (see Prepare to Plant coming up later in May) there could be a lot of wild pansy in the naturalized areas. Wild pansy grow in woods, in sidewalk cracks, in the country and the city, because their seeds spread so easily. Each flower becomes a little pod. When it bursts open, its seeds don't just fall out; they jump around! 

Wild pansy has a lot of nicknames: Johnny Jump up, heart's ease, heart's delight, tickle-my-fancy, Jack-jump-up-and-kiss-me, come-and-cuddle-me, three faces in a hood, or love-in-idleness.  Its official first and last names are Viola tricolor.

Dig up a wild pansy plant and check out the roots, the stem, the leaves and the flowers. Discover the different parts of a flower: the leaves and the sticky stigma which collects pollen. That fertilizes the little plant to make more seeds.

Wild pansy flowers are edible. They are rich in vitamin C. Restaurants put them on salads sometimes to make the food look pretty. Many animals like to eat Johnny jump-ups, too: rabbits, mice and deer, butterflies, wild turkeys and morning doves. Maybe it helps make them healthier after a hard winter.

Farm Animals**
Some regions have a traveling petting zoo business that will come to your school with farm animals for your classes to explore. It is normally much cheaper than any field trip, especially if more than one class takes advantage of the zoo while it’s at school. Get chaperones the way you would for a field trip away.

Coordinate with Grades 2 and 4 to host the petting zoo on the same day (see Grade 2 and 4 outdoor lessons related to that). Prepare students by cautioning them not to make startling, loud noises. Teach them to pet animals by stroking with, not against, the grain of the hair or fur.

Spend extra time with goats. Goats have a long history of association with people. Goats provide milk,
clothing and companionship for people. Goats' native habitat are climbing places. That's why they have the hooves that they have, and why they are good at wandering around to find grass.

If you can look inside a goats mouth, you will see that they have no upper teeth except for molars. That's because they wander around and collect grass; they rip it off and save it. Once they are resting somewhere they chew it up: they spit up bits of collected grass and chew it more thoroughly.

Goats make many different kinds of sounds, not just 'maaaa'. Encourage students to hear different voices.

Compare the students' legs with the goats' legs. What about their ears, eyes? See that the goats' pupils are rectangular!

Tell students that a female goat is called a doe, the male a buck, a baby goat a kid and a 'teenager' goat
is called a yearling.

Maybe the zoo owner will demonstrate a milking. Whether that happens or not, students can learn that

goats give people milk. The teacher can show them the connection between grass and milk. Once inside, students and teacher can make goat cheese together! Buy one gallon of goat's milk from a store. Warm the gallon of whole goat milk to almost boiling (96 Celsius/206 F). Stir in a quarter cup of apple cider vinegar. The milk will rapidly coagulate. Let it sit anywhere from 15 minutes to half-an-hour. Drain the curd into a cheesecloth-lined colander. Drain for one minute. Place the curds into a bowl. Mix 3 tablespoons melted butter and half a teaspoon baking soda into the curd. Mix thoroughly. Place into a container, refrigerate, and it's ready to use. It can be used for lasagna. It can be mixed with herbs and spread on crackers. Doing this, students have a chance to see where some of their food comes from!

All About My Tree*

Nutshell

In this lesson, students record their observations and draw an adopted tree. Students then share information about their trees and create a class scrapbook.

 

Teacher Preparation

• Check the schoolyard or a neighboring park to be sure there are enough trees for each student or pair of students to adopt one. In addition, locate as many of the following as possible:  

        Dead trees

        Living trees

        Young trees

        Old trees

• Print out worksheets from the link* below
• Collect a three ring binder, and a pencil and clipboard for each student
  

  

Safety Preparations 

Visit the outdoor site ahead of time to locate any hazards such as hanging branches, protruding tree roots, holes, poison ivy, stinging nettle.  Encourage students to walk, not run, at all times when in a treed area.

 

Activities

1.  Take your group on a short walk outside to take a closer look at some trees. Try to find dead trees and living trees, old trees and young trees. Allow students time to get a close look at several different trees.
2. Stop at one tree and point out the trunk, crown,and roots of the tree. 
3. At another tree, discuss what trees need to survive: nutrients, sunlight, space, air, and water. (Nutrients come from the soil and help the tree grow. Sunlight is where trees get energy that they make into food. Space is needed so trees can grow and spread their roots and branches. Air is needed for the tree to get carbon dioxide. Water is needed for trees to make food and to transport nutrients in the tree.
4. Explain that each student (or pair of students) will adopt a tree. Students should record special information about their tree on a worksheet. Later, the worksheets will be put together to make a class scrapbook about their adopted trees. 
5. Help match each student or pair of students with one tree that they can adopt as their own. 
6. Give each student Student Pages 1-2, All About My Tree, a clipboard or notebook to use as a writing surface, and several crayons. (Even if two students are adopting one tree, each student will still fill out a worksheet.)  Guide them through the following activities on their Student Page:
1.  Using the space on the worksheet, draw a picture of your tree, including the trunk,crown, and how the roots might look underground. Be sure to notice leaf shape,bark color, etc. Draw an arrow from the word “crown” in the left column to the crown of your tree. Do the same for the trunk and roots.
2. Circle the picture on the worksheet that reminds you of how big your tree is.
3. Do any animals live on or near your tree? Look carefully on the ground around your tree, on the bark, branches, and leaves of your tree. Circle all the animals on the worksheet that you found on or near your tree.
4. Use the space on the worksheet to draw what your tree needs to survive (nutrients,sunlight, space, and water).
5. Look at the shape of your tree’s crown. Circle the picture on your worksheet that reminds you of the shape of your tree.

Conclusion

1. Take your students back to the classroom. If necessary, give them a few minutes to finish drawing and writing about their trees. 
2. Ask students to share with the group one special thing about their tree. Review what trees need to survive: nutrients, sunlight, space, air, and water. Review the three basic parts of a tree: trunk, crown, and roots.
3. Put your worksheets together in the three-ring binder to make one class scrapbook.

Extensions

Optional Ideas:

You may want to have students create a journal page about their tree.

• Listen to your tree. Does it make any sounds? Write or draw about the sounds that you hear on a piece of paper.
• Look at your tree from different angles: lie on the ground underneath your tree and look up at the branches, look at your tree from far away, sit with your back to your tree and look at your tree’s surroundings, stand very close to your tree and take a careful look. Draw a picture of your tree from one of these new angles.
• Make a leaf and/or bark rubbing with crayons.
• Make a leaf print with paint.
• Seasonal Ideas:You may decide to make seasonal visits to your adopted trees. In this case, each student can create their own scrapbook about their tree. 
• Draw a picture of how your tree looks this season and include the surroundings. Be sure to notice how the tree’s shadow looks different at different times of the day or year.
• Are any new animals living on or near your tree? Look carefully on the ground around your tree, as well as on the bark, branches, and leaves of your tree. Draw pictures of the animals you see this season.

BONUS:  Click here to find a whole series of lessons that involve snails and worms.  Great for the month of May!

*This lesson was found at University of Wisconsin Stephen Point Forestry Education site. For a paper copy of this lesson, the work sheets and material's list, click here.
**These activity ideas are adapted from Nature for the Very Young by Marcia Bowden New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1989